Chapter 11
Carmen doesn’t text me back the whole weekend. At first I try to pretend that she just didn’t see my message…but I know she’s glued to her phone if she’s talking to Anthony, so it’s official: Carmen’s ignoring me.
I can’t remember the last time she was this mad at me. She’s been annoyed at me before plenty of times–whenever I can’t have a sleepover because my parents want to have a family game night, or that time I refused to coordinate our outfits for Spirit Week because I already had put together one for myself. Even when I accidentally revealed her crush to another friend in the eighth grade, she got over it.
But she has never gone on a full-on texting strike…especially not when I need her the most.
I have so many things I want to say to her. I’ve asked you about the night of the dance before and all you said was you didn’t know why I left early. Why did you conveniently leave out the fact that we didn’t even get ready together? Were we fighting? Did I leave early because of you? Is that why you won’t tell me…do you feel guilty? Whenever I begin to text these questions, I can’t bring myself to push send.
My biggest question for her, though, is about what Sydney said at the spa about being in love. Was it with Pete? Was that possible, when we had broken up three weeks before?
If I was being honest with myself, while Pete makes the most sense, he also doesn’t.
When Pete first told me after the accident that I’d broken up with him, he’d said the reason I gave him was simple—my heart wasn’t in it anymore. But coming to that realization wasn’t so simple. In fact, as he said it, I was proud of my past self for finally putting to words the feelings I’d been having for a while…the ones I tried to push away.
People at school always call Pete by his full name because Pete Yearling rolls off the tongue. To me, though, he was just Pete. Everyone would say we were the it couple, or goals. But to me we were just us.
The first time I officially talked to Pete was after a basketball game at the diner. I didn’t even think he knew who I was at the time. Did you have fun? he asked me. It was such a striking question to me. He was the one who’d played his heart out, and he was checking to see if I had enjoyed myself. It was the first of many moments that proved he was different.
Pete is kind and selfless, unexpectedly so for being Pete Yearling—people would still like him if he wasn’t. He has this happy glow to him all the time, but I guess I’d be happy too if I was as good at everything as he is and everyone liked me. But why did they like him in the first place? There’s just something about him that you can’t dislike. Maybe it’s because he’s the opposite of egotistical and can make people feel special, like he did with me that day after the game, when he’s the real star.
But as much as everyone likes Pete, could I honestly say I loved him? When I was with him I felt really comfortable…like a caterpillar wrapped up in a cocoon, but I was constantly waiting for butterflies.
Maybe our breakup was some sort of catalyst, though. Maybe it took setting Pete free to realize I really did love him. People say that can happen sometimes. The classic you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.
I also knew a couple of things about Sydney. One, she could be exaggerating. And two, she could be flat-out wrong—maybe I wasn’t in love with anyone. Maybe I was just excited to go to the dance and I was texting someone in the nervous, giddy way you get when you’re first talking to someone new, like Carmen is with Anthony. Or maybe the person I was texting was Carmen, and she had some logical reason why she couldn’t get her nails done with me that day—a dentist appointment or something. I bet it’s that simple, and the only reason my mind keeps racing all over the place is because she’s giving me the silent treatment.
The worst part is that I can’t exactly tell her I need her right now. I can see her just rolling her eyes at me and saying isn’t that ironic? in the sassy voice she has perfected. She’d be right—the whole reason Carmen’s mad at me is because she needed me at the game. She had asked me to go with her, and I completely bailed.
I know I screwed up, which is why I’m surprised Monday morning when a one-word text appears under my rows of apologies.
I open it while I’m sitting at the breakfast table with my mom, eating cereal, and I crunch hard in shock. Then I sigh in relief. Carmen has driven me every single day since the accident, but I was worried since she was ignoring me. I was just about to ask my mom.
“Is everything okay?” she asks me now as I get up quickly to clear my cereal away.
“Yeah,” I say, rushing over to dump my leftover milk in the sink. “Carmen’s here. Don’t want to keep her waiting.”
She eyes me. “Okay, just checking. You seemed a little distracted this weekend.”
I smile. “I was just trying to finish Pride and Prejudice.”
After the last paper heart, I locked myself in my room the rest of the weekend. As I reread my favorite book, I was reminded why I love it so much. The characters. The sarcasm. The will they/won’t they love. I even enjoy how the chapters are broken up with letters—it makes me wish people still wrote them today. How great would it be to get one in your mailbox? I guess it’s not so different from receiving these paper hearts.
But as I started flipping through the pages, I realized something else I absolutely adore: someone had underlined their favorite passages and doodled on the pages, just like I do. My favorite is a pair of heart eyes when the reader meets Mr. Darcy. In other places, there are reactions and questions. At first, I examined the handwriting, hoping I’d recognize it, but it’s inconsistent. Sometimes it looks like the person was reading the story in a hurry; other times there’s a thoughtful note. In a couple of places, when they liked a quote, they would write it out in the margins. When I got to one, it felt like it was directed to me.
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
I read it over and over again. It was almost like they were telling me to stop beating myself up for not remembering—it’s not going to improve my future.
I wish life was more like books and someone could write margin notes for you along the way.
But I don’t tell my mom this, like I don’t tell her a lot lately. She smiles at me now, gently. “Just wanted to check and make sure nothing happened at that game. I know people can sometimes be insensitive about the accident.”
I cringe at the word check. My mom is what I call a checker. She’s never worried per se, but she likes to check up on people. It’s probably what makes her a good doctor. If I’m looking flushed, she’ll check my temperature. If I’m just hangry or in a weird mood, she’ll ask me if there’s something more going on and examine my face to see if I’m telling the truth. If she’s squinting, it means she doesn’t believe me. When I drive places I’ve never gone before, I’m supposed to tell her when I’ve arrived. All pretty standard Mom Behavior.
But after the accident, her checking turned a full 180. It was way too much. I couldn’t leave the room without her smothering me. Eventually, my psychiatrist thought it would be a good idea for me to bring her to a session to tell her how I was feeling. She made more of an effort after that. But every so often, she does her routine checkup with me. How are you doing? Any headaches recently? At least it’s feeling like things are going back to how they used to be.
Sometimes I wonder what’s going to happen when I go off to college. Will she expect to “check up” on me every day? But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
It’s weird. College is something I used to obsess about all the time. But now that I’m in, I wish I could hold on to high school just a little longer. Maybe that’s why when my psychiatrist suggested a gap year to take care of myself before being thrust into a stressful environment, I seriously considered it. Or at least on some days. The others, I think my mom put him up to it.
I shake my head. “I promise nothing happened at the game.”
Because I didn’t go, I think. But lying by omission is best. She’d be way more worried if I told her I was chasing paper hearts. I could see her mind jumping to worst-case scenarios like a stalker or serial killer because of all the criminal podcasts she listens to. It reminds me of what Andy said. I still can’t believe how jaded he is, even if some girl did break up with him. Maybe it has more to do with his parents’ divorce. But as frustrating as he is, I can’t think about that right now. I have bigger things to worry about.
Carmen barely looks away from the steering wheel when I say hi to her.
After Ashley and I buckle our seat belts, Carmen peels out of our neighborhood without talking, so we sit there quiet too. Carmen’s fingernails are short, which means she has been biting them. That’s how I know she’s really anxious. She only messes up her nails if something is chipping away at her too.
Say something to make this better, I think.
My eyes find Ashley’s in the rearview mirror. She shrugs at me as if to say what’s going on with you two? I haven’t told her Carmen’s mad at me, but it’s blatantly obvious now. Her lips are pressed together in a straight line. The music is off. The only sound comes from her jagged fingernails tapping on the steering wheel.
“Carmen—” I start, but she cuts me short.
“You know, the last time you started acting like this was right before the accident.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “What…what do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Saying you’ll do something and then completely bailing last second without a good reason. Wanting to do things without me and acting all innocent about it after. Were you even thinking about me at all when you decided not to come to the game?”
I open my mouth, but suddenly it feels dry, like cereal without milk, and instead of words coming out, my lips just form an O like a Cheerio.
“Exactly,” Carmen says, shaking her head. “Did you think about Pete either? He told me you texted him too. He was worried that you stopped responding and never showed up. We both were worried,” she says, gripping the steering wheel tight. When we come to a red light, she turns to me. There’s a glimmer in her eye.
“Sometimes it’s like you don’t even think about what we went through after the accident.”
That’s not fair! my brain screams. I think about the accident all the time. But do I think about what other people went through? Maybe not enough.
Carmen’s words are laced with pain, and after she says them it feels like the little string in me that was tying everything together is suddenly undone. I sit in the passenger seat silent, in shame. I can’t even bring myself to look in the rearview mirror at Ashley, who probably feels the same exact way as Carmen.
The light turns green and Carmen starts to drive again, but I still feel like my body is in slow motion.
“You can’t go radio silent like that, El,” Carmen says, more gently now. “Especially not to me and Pete. We were by your side during the absolute worst….We can’t bear to do that again.”
My cheeks flame. They were worried I’d been in another accident—no wonder Carmen is upset with me. I didn’t even think about that when I decided not to go to the game.
“I’m sorry for bailing,” I say. “I wasn’t feeling up to it, but I should’ve let you know that. I’ll apologize to Pete today too.”
“Good” is all Carmen says back, but I let out a sigh of relief. This is a million times worse than the time I revealed her crush in eighth grade, but we’re still best friends and she’ll get over this.
One thing is for sure, though: I can cross Carmen off my list of suspects.
Now I really need to talk to Pete.
As soon as we all walk inside, I head toward Pete’s locker instead of my own. Carmen and Ashley nod at me like they know what I’m doing, but that isn’t possible, because I don’t even know what I’m doing. Last Friday, I would’ve asked him about three things under my floorboard, but now I have this urgent desire to make things right. Also, if Carmen isn’t my secret admirer, it seems more likely that Pete is.
When I turn the corner toward Pete’s locker, my stomach drops. He’s surrounded by a crowd of people—other basketball players and girls with perfect blowouts I don’t recognize. This is why you should always plan things, I scold myself.
I’m about to turn around when he spots me above a brunette girl’s head. He raises his hand immediately and waves.
I give him a small wave back, and that’s all he needs. He excuses himself from the group and walks over to me.
“Hey!” he says with a wide smile when he reaches me. “I didn’t see you at the game the other night. You said you wanted to talk afterward….”
“Yeah,” I mutter, still ashamed from what Carmen told me. “I’m really sorry about that.”
“No worries. Hey, where are you headed? I’ll walk with you.”
“My locker.”
“Great.” He smiles widely again. I wonder if he realizes this wasn’t the way to my locker at all. I feel my cheeks redden and I turn back around the same way I came. He follows, not once looking back at the group he left behind. It reminds me of why I felt so special being his girlfriend—when he’s with you, all his focus is on you, like nothing else matters.
“How’s basketball going?” I ask, realizing how easy it is to fall back into conversation with someone you know.
“It’s going great. We won on Friday. Now we have a bye week until playoffs.”
“That’s huge,” I say.
“Yeah,” he continues. “So since I don’t have a game this Friday, I was thinking of going to the Hudson Valley Orchard for hot apple cider and donuts. My sister has been talking about it nonstop.”
“Oh yeah. I love it there in the winter.”
Barns aren’t normally my thing, even though my town has a ton of them. They smell like rotting hay in the thick of summertime and are overcrowded with tourists picking apples in the fall. But in the winter, people in town go for the live music and food.
“Would you want to go with me?” he asks quickly. It catches me off guard. Last year we never went on a real date. The most we did was hang out with Carmen and other guys from his team. There was that one time we went to the movies when his mom dropped us off and it almost felt like a real date until mine picked us up again. Pete always talked about where he’d want to take me when he could finally drive us places, but his birthday is in May, so we never got the chance. Now he drives a black Audi, and when girls from the bus see it pulling up into the parking lot, they pull down the windows to wave at him. Plenty of them would love to go on a date with Pete. Why doesn’t he ask one of them?
I look up at him and he meets my eyes, anxiously awaiting my answer. Maybe one-on-one time is long overdue. I thought you were in love, I remember Sydney saying as she did my nails.
“Sure,” I say as we reach my locker. “What time?”
“How about seven? I can pick you up.”
I nod. “Sounds great.”
“Good,” he says, smiling. “Well, I have to get to class. Mrs. D said if I’m late one more time she’ll tell my coach. But I’m looking forward to Friday.”
“Me too.”
He smiles again and I stare at him in amazement as he walks away. What just happened? The last thing I expected was for him to ask me out on a date.
I turn to my locker and fiddle with the lock. Eventually, I get the numbers right and when I open the door, I can’t believe my luck.
There’s another paper heart.
I used to think people who gasp were faking it. But I gasp on the spot.
I clutch the paper heart to my real one before opening it.
See a castle from a view as beautiful as you
6
“Whoa, watercolors! I wish I’d thought of that!” a voice says behind me. I spin around and it’s Sarah Chang.
“Me too,” I say as she starts digging in her tote bag. She must have paper hearts for me.
“But I’m sure the ones in here are equally impressive in their own right. You have a bunch more paper hearts—hold on.”
Soon she pulls out a small stack, and as I accept them, I put the watercolored one on top so it doesn’t get lost in the pile.
I’m curious about whether she’s received my paper heart yet, but I can’t exactly ask without giving myself away. “So what made you switch from treasurer to planning committee this year?” I ask instead.
Her eyes search me for a second, like she’s wondering why I’m talking to her. “To be honest, I spent the first three years of high school pretending I could avoid it.” She shrugs. “So, I made it a goal of mine to actually participate in school functions this year. You know, get the whole experience in before it’s over. I figured if I was going to do that, I might as well make it fun.”
For a second, I wonder if she’s going to ask me why I quit, but she doesn’t. She must be too polite for that—just another reason to feel bad that my friends were mean to her.
“How many more hearts do you have to pass out? Do you need help?”
She shakes her head. “Normally, I play Roblox in between periods. This is giving me something better to do.”
“Well, not if you were playing Rockefeller Street.”
“I mean, obviously that’s my game of choice.” She laughs. “But I can sacrifice some Roblox time for this. I actually enjoy seeing people’s faces when I hand them paper hearts. It’s like I’m Santa with my tote bag.”
“Or Cupid,” I say.
“Yeah, that would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?”
I notice her tote bag is different from the last one I saw. This one says guac is extra but so are you. I’m about to ask her where it’s from because I like it so much, when I see her looking around like she’s worried who might see us together.
“Well, this Cupid is off to make more end games happen. See you around.”
“Oh, okay…bye,” I say, stuffing the paper hearts in my backpack.
All but my watercolored paper heart.